19" Emerson from '89 - didn't think any were left

[Jeffhs]

I had one of these TVs, bought new in either 1989 or 1990; I'm not sure anymore. It worked very well for me, not one bit of trouble in the time I owned it, beautiful picture on every Cleveland TV station (cable) and video cassettes (I hooked up my VCR to it as well). I replaced it with, IIRC, a Zenith TV with electronic tuning after a few years; I don't know whatever became of the Emerson set after that.

One thing which puzzled the dickens out of me (and still does to this day) with that Emerson TV, however, was its habit of shutting off every time there was a lightning storm in the area (I lived in a Cleveland suburb at the time, and the TV was connected to an all-channel antenna in the attic). I don't know why the TV kept doing this each and every time we had a thunderstorm; the only thing I can come up with is maybe it had something to do with the HV shutdown system, or perhaps if the storm hit close to the power line the TV was plugged into, there may have been a slight increase, or even a momentary surge (!), in line voltage which could have triggered the shutdown circuit. None of the surges or momentary increases were bad enough to damage anything (the TV worked just fine after the storm passed), but just enough to cause the shutdown system to shut off the set.

I can't imagine, for the life of me, what else could have caused this since, after all, this had absolutely nothing to do with the 2nd anode voltage on the CRT (although the lightning strike could have fooled the shutdown circuit into going into failure mode); as I said, it seemed to occur each and every time there was a strong thunderstorm with frequent lightning in the area.

The problem seemed to be unique to that particular TV, as no other TV I've owned before or since that one has done anything like that. Even my present Insignia 32" flat screen does not seem to be affected by lightning striking near my apartment (I have seen some pretty strong lightning storms since I moved here 21 years ago). I may never know what caused my Emerson TV to shut off during lightning storms at this late date.